5 Stages of Knowing God: Obedience

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.

Luke 5:5

We began this conversation about knowing God yesterday, and we discussed trust as the first stage of it. We emphasised that trust is built on knowledge but serves as the foundation for obedience. 

Think about it: we will never willingly obey someone we don’t trust. Hold a gun to my head, and I might obey you—unwillingly. Fear is a great motivator. But depending on what you demand, I might take my chances with the bullet. If I fully trust you, however, you only need to ask me, and I’m very likely to obey. (Though it still depends on what you’re asking.)

Luke painted a rather interesting picture of how obedience happens in chapter five of his gospel. 

“One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” (Luke 5:1-4)

Ordinarily, Peter was supposed to scoff at this instruction of Jesus and at best sit him down to educate him on the rudiments of fishing. Peter could have asked, “Sir, how long have you been fishing?” and I can imagine the anger, disdain and disappointment on Peter’s face when he learned that the person giving him fishing advice had never stepped into the fishing water all his life. 

However, Peter gave a rather strange response. He answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”Luke 5:5

When Peter says ‘because you said so,’ he is expressing his trust in Jesus as the basis for his obedience. In Luke 4:38-39, Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law of fever. He already knew what Jesus could do, and that knowledge built trust. This trust was the basis for his obedience even when the instruction made no sense. 

Finally, when Peter obeyed God, see what happens “…they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break” Luke 5:6. The more we obey God, the more we will experience Him; the more we obey God’s word, the more we will experience it. 

PRAYER

Dear Lord, I want to truly experience you. Please Lord, help me to know you, to trust you and to obey you until I come into the experience of the things I have come to believe.